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jennifer
weiner
>my
latest fave read>top
ten all-time reads>top
ten holiday reads>author
interviews>
Brilliant author of Good in Bed and In her Shoes takes time out from her increasingly hectic schedule to talk about her writing.
What
inspires you to write?
I've always written. Practically ever since I learned how to read I was
trying to make up my own stories. And I think that these days most of
my inspiration comes from real life, and the big questions of real life.
With my first two books, I'd say the questions they answered were the
ones that preoccupied me in my twenties - who am I going to be when I
grow up, and Who will I love? With my third book, I'm trying to deal with
questions of
ambition - how it can help you, how it can hurt you - in addition to having
another female heroine deal with questions of romance and family history.
I think that in a purely selfish sense, I write because it lets me puzzle
out my own answers to the big questions..and I love entertaining people!
How
long does it take you to write a novel?
How long Twelve to eighteen months for a rough draft - no matter what!
GOOD IN BED took about eighteen months to write, and I was working full-time
when I wrote it. IN HER SHOES took about a year, and I'd become a full-time
novelist at that point. The book I'm writing now has taken about eighteen
months.
Do
you have a writing routine? If so, what is it?
I generally write in the afternoons, on my laptop, at a coffee shop down
the street from where I live. Even though I'm technically a stay-at-home
writer, I don't actually stay at home. Too many distractions. I work anywhere
from three to four hours, but even when I'm not actually sitting in front
of the computer, I'm thinking about characters and plot.
Is
it harder to start or finish a novel?
For me, finishing is harder..because that's when I have to make the hard
choices about which scenes and characters stay, and which ones go. I really
like rewriting, and think sometimes I could do it forever, but stopping
- now that's a challenge!
How
did you go about finding an agent and do you think it's necessary to have
an agent?
I talk about this a lot on my website. Basically, I finished GOOD IN BED,
my first novel, and got myself one of the many guides to finding literary
agents - specifically, John Baker's "A Writer's Guide to Literary
Agents." I
went through the book and then I went through my books, making a list
of the agents who'd represented the books I'd loved the best. Then I wrote
a funny, incisive, short query letter talking about who I was and what
I'd written and where I'd been published before, and sent it to about
twenty-five agencies. I got twenty-three turn-downs right away - "Sorry,
we're not taking new clients. Or new fiction. Or new women's fiction."
The other two
asked to see the manuscript, and one of them wanted to represent me. She
wound up not being my agent in the end - and you can read all about that
on my website - but one of the women I'd met in her office was able to
recommend another, younger, just-starting-out agent. That was the brilliant
Joanna Pulcini, and she's been my agent ever since. I think it's definitely
necessary to have an agent when you've finished your first novel and want
to sell it, but in terms of just getting articles, commentary and short
stories published, I don't think you need an agent at all, and I'd advise
against spending too much time searching for one until you've actually
got a book to sell.
How
do you cure writer's block?
Well, after ten years as a journalist for daily newspapers, I've gotten
into the habit of writing every day and meeting deadlines, because you
just don't have the luxury of ignoring them. So I've been lucky not to
have ever been plagued with writer's block. I think that to a large extent
the difference between actual writers and people who just talk about writing
books someday is physical discipline and dogged persistence - the ability
to just put yourself in front of that blank screen or blank page every
day and write something, even if it turns out being not so terrific. And
if I ever got stuck, I'd probably put aside whatever I was working on
and spend a day or two doing something else - an essay, a poem, a journal
entry.
What
is your all-time desert island book?
Susan Isaac's ALMOST PARADISE. A big, juicy treat of a book with a great
story and a wonderful heroine. I re-read it at least once a year.
What's
the biggest myth about being a writer?
I think Anne Lamott spells it out best when she talks about the dream
of being published, and how once your books are in the bookstores all
of your problems will be solved, your life will be perfect, there will
never again
be dirty dishes or traffic jams, you'll be magically cured of envy and
jealousy, and the world will finally treat you with the respect that you
deserve. Of course, that's not what happens. You'll still be the same
insecure, neurotic person you were at the start of the process, only now
you'll have bad reviews and jealous relatives to plague you. But all that
being said, walking into a bookstore and seeing your books there - or
hearing from people who were touched by the characters you've created
- is a pretty phenomenal feeling.
What
advice would you give budding authors?
Write every day and don't wait for anyone to give you permission. You
don't need an agent or a publishing deal or a fancy degree, you just need
time, and discipline,
and a story to tell.
